War on Aljazeera an Assault on the Collective Arab Aspiration
By Ramzy Baroud
While in high school, I used to write a weekly article. Pretending to use the school’s restroom, I would hide a scrap of
paper behind a specified toilet and leave. A young man would follow me in, locate the paper, and fit it into his shoe
and so hastily vanish. On the next day, the article, in its entirety would be inscribed on the walls of the school;
hand-written with no names attached, except for a pen name: “Young Kanafani”. .
For years, I was Young Kanafani, whose articles, audio tapes of poetry were infused throughout the Gaza Strip, and later
the West Bank. For years, aside from being terrified by an Israeli army raid on our house, I was, even more petrified of
the thought that if only my dad knew that most of the Intifada graffiti that dotted the ailing walls of our refugee camp
was mine, he would have grounded me for life.
Few feelings can be as intense as those evoked by oppression, except of the oppressed person’s inability to reflect on
his torment. Freedom of expression, including the press, can be much greater than a political or ideological mantra, or
a reflection of the health or fragility of any democracy. One’s incapability of conveying his emotions, his aspirations
and his defiance is sufficient to turn one’s surroundings into a boundless prison; not as if Palestinians didn’t find
many ways to defy their prison guards, in a real and figurative sense: the intellectual work produced by Palestinians
prisoners, throughout the years exceeded that produced outside prison walls. Many Palestinian bookstores had a special,
often large section dedicated to Adab al-Sojoun, or “The Art of Prisons”.
One must also admit that many Arab countries have turned the pen of the censurer, to a sword, unleashing wrath upon
those who would dare question the ruling elite. When an Algerian intellectual writes: “We are a nation that only
practices freedom at the walls of public restrooms and prisons,” then we must agree that no pretext is sufficient enough
to excuse the lack of freedom that Arab peoples endure.
Nonetheless, banning freedom of expression or delimiting the flow of information is not only the outcome of a ruthless
occupation or a misguided, self-absorbed regime. In countries recognized for unmatched democratic experiences, the
highly commercialized flow of information has also proved to be containable, restricted even, although using different
roles, and much more ambiguous ones.
For decades, each of these carefully designed media control schemes worked so well, in fact, relying partly on one
another to continue to thrive: Israel maintained that its crackdowns on freedom of the occupied Palestinians was part of
its attempt to wipe out terrorism by stamping out those who incite violence, and unlike its Arab foes it’s “the only
democracy in the Middle East”; Arab governments, in turn, argued that dissent serves Israel because its reflects a lack
of unity at a time that such a value was needed the most; The United States government, as always, turned a blind eye to
the flagrant violations of human rights and freedoms by Israel, employed the rightful criticism of such violations in
the Arab world to maintain a racist image so ingrained in American psyche that Arabs cannot be trusted and that Israel
is the only country in the Middle East that embraces the adored principals of democracy, and therefore, it is our “moral
duty” to support the state of Israel, even though such support has required the subjugation of an entire population, the
financing of an illegal occupation, ceaseless settlement construction, occasional drives for war, etc ..
It’s from within and as a result of these carefully knitted control mechanisms that Aljazeera was born and flourished.
And because Aljazeera displayed a shockingly balanced narration of the news and provided an equal platform to all, it
was hated and loved; it was an Islamist, a socialist, a radical, a conservative, a reactionary, a progressive, a
demagogue, a liberal, democratic, pro-Saddam, pro-Shitte, pro Kurds, anti Israel, infiltrated by the Israeli Mossad, by
the CIA, by Osama bin Laden, by everyone, by no one, all at once. In short, it was even-handed.
But it was not until September 11, 2001, that Aljazeera became a full-fledged enemy of the United States, for it began
shifting its news coverage to allow uncensored platforms to all parties concerned: US experts, intellectuals and
officials, Taliban leaders and ambassadors and even the frequently aired messages of Osama Bin Laden.
Needless to say, regional players scrambled to silence the increasingly annoying channel; not one Arab nation, including
the Palestinian Authority, has failed to exert pressure on Aljazeera, directly, through the detention of journalists or
shutting down offices, or indirectly through pressuring the Qatari government. Israel on the other hand, shut down
Aljazeera’s offices repeatedly, confiscated its equipment, and besieged its staff in their offices in Ramallah and
elsewhere as early as last month.
A branch of the war on terrorism suddenly evolved to become a war on independent media that dared provide a platform to
any one who disagrees with the “official” narration of the news.
But instead of muting Aljazeera, the aggressive campaign against it flared sympathy and raised questions:
“Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers?” Helen Thomas from the Boston
Channel wrote.
She continued: “For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in
Iraq, we are proving that it is intolerable.” “The terrible irony here is that we pride ourselves in offering a model to
the rest of the world on how to design -- and live by -- our constitutional freedoms.”
There are increasing rumors that Aljazeera is finally falling under pressure, is compromising on its editorial line, is
firing individuals who are reviled by the US for their anti war stances.
I am not certain how truthful these reports are; one thing I am sure of however, is that the fall of Aljazeera, or
pressuring it to compromise on its independence and journalistic integrity shall please many dictatorships in the Middle
East and the region’s only two occupying powers, Israel and the United States.
A great American thinker once said: “A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society.”
Aljazeera must not be the ill-fated end of a failed experiment, but the beginning of a valiant journey where Arab people
can reclaim their humanity, their freedom and their greatness, which they have been so unjustly denied.
- Ramzy Baroud is an American Arab author, editor-in-chief of the PalestineChronicle.com